NHS test bed aims to set gold standard in personalised patient care

Dr Chris Duffy, NHS HMR CCG Chair and local GP

A pioneering project in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale aiming to help identify people at risk of long term conditions (LTCs) earlier and prevent unplanned hospital admissions goes live Tuesday (16 May).

The Long Term Conditions Early Intervention programme is a partnership between NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and global healthcare company Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) Ltd with support from Verily Life Sciences and participating GP practices within the CCG.

The project will involve using analytics software with healthcare technology such as remote monitoring and a 12-month healthcare professionals training programme to better understand trends and patterns related to long term conditions like heart failure, type 2 diabetes and some lung diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It is one of seven ‘test beds’ announced last year by NHS England to find innovative technologies and evaluate their potential impact on improving the performance of the NHS.

The Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale ‘test bed’ will work with GP practices in the area to collect patient data that is stripped of personally identifiable details, to identify at-risk individuals. A key requirement for the project is strict adherence to national and international information governance standards.

Patients can opt out at any time before data extraction begins. If a patient opts out of sharing their pseudonymised data after data extraction has occurred, it will not be possible to remove the original data but we will stop any further capture or analysis of that data. The data extraction software will also automatically look for patient-opt out codes before extracting pseudonymised patient data so that if patients have historical opt–out from sharing their medical records, then they will not need to do this again.

Dr Chris Duffy, HMR CCG chairman and local GP, said: “By understanding how a patient’s access and engagement with healthcare impacts their health and wellbeing, we ultimately hope to enable healthcare professionals to more proactively detect and manage patient care so that we can reduce illness and unplanned hospital admissions, and provide better outcomes and quality of life to patients.

“Whilst the data from patients will not identify them, we are mindful that some people may prefer not to be involved in this project and that is why we have opt-out mechanisms in place, to do this.”

Currently one fifth of the population of Greater Manchester have two or more long term conditions which increases the likelihood of lower life expectancy and more ill health.

People with long term conditions within NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale are in the top 10% of people who have the worst quality of life in the country.

For the NHS, long term conditions now account for approximately 50% of all GP appointments, 64% of outpatient appointments and 70% of hospital stays.1 Identifying a significantly ‘at risk’ individual just one year earlier can radically reduce their chances of developing ill-health.

The programme, which is supported by the Greater Manchester Academic Health Science Network as part of its remit to speed up the adoption and spread of innovation across the NHS and has been reviewed by the British Medical Association and the Local Medical Committee, expects to involve clinics in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale. It is designed to help doctors and other healthcare professionals identify those patients at risk of serious health problems earlier and, once identified, put in place intervention measures and treatment plans such as better monitoring, lifestyle advice or medication to prevent or reduce unplanned hospital admissions while delivering savings and efficiencies to the NHS.

Local GP, Dr Rashmi Nagappa, said: “These days, technology is embodied in every aspect of our lives. Through the test beds project in Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale, we family doctors now have an opportunity to trial the use of technology to empower our patients to self-manage their long term condition. I am very excited to learn how this early identification of risk of developing long term conditions will help us to prevent illness. This means we can work in smarter ways to dedicate our time and resources to patients who really need it.”

Dr Junaid Bajwa, Director of Healthcare Services at MSD, added: “MSD already has a huge legacy in tackling LTCs together with a growing capability in healthcare technology – as a healthcare company, we are delighted to be able to bring this expertise to the NHS in a truly collaborative partnership to help drive solutions that we hope will make a difference. This programme aims to support a more personalised approach to delivering and receiving care. It should help doctors be more proactive about preventing and managing long-term conditions and reduce the amount of time patients have to spend in GP waiting areas and ultimately hospital.”